The company's products and services are used by more than 200 organisations across Europe, North America, the UK and Ireland. Its clients include SMEs like Sweeney Oil, the City Bin Co and Callinan Coaches, and it also works with larger organisations such as Bulmers and the HSE National Ambulance Service.
Celtrak develops and sells GPS and telematic systems that transmit data from a vehicle to help business managers track a moving or stationary asset. Celtrak's products are generally used for tasks like verifying time sheets and examining how safely and efficiently drivers conduct themselves on the road.
IT at the core
Celtrak moved its headquarters from Tuam to Ballybrit Business Park in Galway about three years ago. The company made the move to facilitate an expansion and because it wanted to access a greater array of IT networking services - both elements the business park offered.
"IT is absolutely core to our business. We had to look at locations where there is a lot of IT infrastructure and that is why we chose Ballybrit," says Declan McAndrew, head of engineering. McAndrew has responsibility for tasks including research and development, the company's IT infrastructure and the provision of its managed services. "We have access to multiple network providers in the immediate vicinity. If one network provider goes down we can switch to an alternative provider without affecting our functions," he says.
The company employs 18 staff, the majority of whom are IT professionals. Eight of Celtrak's staff use laptops with mobile broadband connections, while the rest use internet-enabled PCs.
The company manages most of its IT services in-house. However, this wasn't always the case. "We have outsourced [some IT services] in the past. However, because of how critical [the GPS and telematic systems] are to us, we have very senior people who know all about IT networking in-house," says McAndrew.
Celtrak staff also manage and maintain the firm's website. The site is an important tool for Celtrak's SME customers, as it allows them to access the GPS system, where they receive location data and alarms and can generate operational reports about their vehicles.
Investing in data
Since locating in Ballybrit, Celtrak has set up a data centre which hosts and manages all of the company's IT services and solutions. The company made a "heavy investment" to develop the data centre and, according to McAndrew, Celtrak is only one of a handful of companies in Ireland to have such a facility. The data centre operates using blade servers and Windows Server 2003. It handles information from the GPS systems Celtrak provides, relayed from around the world.
"Every single service that we provide is run through the data centre. We have millions upon millions of transactions that come in [to the data centre] every single day from these GPS telemetry units out in the field. It comes from all different places, as far as China, South Africa, all around Europe and the US. We also provide access to data over a seven-year period for our customers," says McAndrew.
The services Celtrak provides to other companies are designed to operate all day, every day, and Celtrak has signed agreements with its clients to this effect. The company has taken a range of precautions to make sure it can provide these services even in the event of a power loss or a server going off-line.
"The data centre has back-up systems and back-up generators that automatically kick in, in the event of a power loss. Also we have a mirror centre with a similar type of infrastructure in a separate building a couple of blocks away. This is connected with fibre and copper wire. The idea here is if anything happens to the building, the other mirror site will kick in and take over," explains McAndrew.
Celtrak also relies on a solution known as G-Core Distributed Health Monitoring System. This operates independently of the data centre and is designed to report any faults in the IT infrastructure to Celtrak support staff.
With such a huge reliance on IT, the company can't afford to take any chances. "We have invested heavily in the monitoring of the data centre so that in the event of anything happening, we know immediately and can take decisive action," says McAndrew.